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“BIM BAM BIRI”

Bim Bam, Bim Bam
Biri Biri Bam, Biri Bam
Biri Biri Biri Bam
Bim Bam

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Cultural
Change

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When two or more people
come together with a
shared purpose, they form
a culture with its own
written and unwritten
rules for behaviour.
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 Factors Causing Cultural
Change
 Technological development
 Cultural diffusion
 Ideas and ideologies
 Collective action
 Geography and climate
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 Multiculturalism
• All individuals in culture are not exactly alike
• United States is multicultural
• Blend of overlapping cultures
• Subculture similarities hold us together
• U.S. culture is a composite of subcultures
• Challenge is finding correct mix

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 The Nature of a Society
• Group of individuals living as members of a community
• Characteristics shaped by generations
• Society: group must be bound by shared relationships, and be
organized
• Not all groups are societies

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 Theories of Social Change
• Ideal golden age (in distant past)
• Greek philosophers
• Yielded to silver, bronze, iron ages
• Doctrine of inevitable progress
• World getting better and better
• Popular in modern U.S. and Europe
• Cyclical change
• Normal cycles of growth, climax and decline

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 Factors Causing Cultural Change

• Technological development
• Cultural diffusion
• Ideas and ideologies
• Collective action
• Geography and climate

©Neil Mey/Dreamstime.com

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 Factors Stabilizing Culture

 Stability of social norms

 Humans conservative about change
 Habit
 Value attachment
 Mores have strong values attachment
 Vested interest: status that relies on status quo (so resist
change)

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 Social Change and Social Problems

• Social problems:
• Wide recognition of adverse affects
• Belief that condition can and should change
• Large modern societies experience more complex
social problems
• Seldom a simple or complete solution

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 Cultural Lag Theory

• Ogburn: cultural lag source of social disorganization

• Culture is pattern of interrelated elements
• Change in one area creates strain in another
• Adjustments cause lag in which tension persists
• Technological change sets pace of change in modern
industrial societies

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 Limitations of Cultural Lag Theory

 Material culture changes do not always precede

nonmaterial changes
 Difficult to reach agreement on changes needed
 Making adjustments complex, and often impossible

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 Cultural Contrasts

• Social problems can exist within and between societies

• Cultural relativism: all cultures of the world are
equally valid
• Examine cultures in their context
• Must be judged relative to culture’s value system
• Ethnocentrism: judging other cultures by one’s own
value system

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 Cultural Regions of the World

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 Society, Culture, and Cultural Change

Society is the force that holds people together. Without society

there is no culture, no justice, just individuals competing with
one another for survival

Culture is a pattern of human behavior. And includes not only

how to behave but also the material and historical facts.

What is the difference between society and culture?

© 2006 Alan S. Berger 20

 Society, Culture, and Cultural Change
Culture and the Nature of Society
Culture and Its Role in Human Societies
1. The way of life in a society
2. Includes knowledge, arts, beliefs, customs Language, tools
3. Everything of Human Origin
4. Social Norms: Conventions, Mores, and Laws
5. Social Institutions
6. Material Products
7. Material Products
8. Language
© 2006 Alan S. Berger 21

9. values
 Society, Culture, and Cultural Change
.

B. Elements of culture.
1. Norms, conventions, mores and laws.
a. Conventions are the simple customs of any
group, things that are generally believed in, “conventional wisdom.”
b. Mores have serious consequences when they
are violated.
c. Norms and mores can be, but do not have to
be laws and regulations.
2. A social institution is an accepted pattern generally
complex of behaviors such as companies, corporations. school,
families, religions.
Social values are also embodied in norms. They include
such things as desirable goals, and accepted forms of behavior

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Society, Culture, and Cultural Change

3. Culture is generally not material. But some forms of

culture do have material expressions, which we call
artifacts.
a. Tools from primitive cultures
b. Art of various kinds, sculptures and paintings
books, recordings
4. Language expresses a culture is well different
cultures have different kinds of words, for example,
Eskimos have multiple words that describe different kinds
of snow that we don’t have.

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 Society, Culture, and Cultural Change
III. Cultural integration: the extent to which a culture is internally consistent.
A. For example, a culture that believes in the equality of all individuals, but yet
treats some people differently, because all of racial or ethnic characteristics is
less integrated than a culture which believing in the equality treats all people
equally
B. Social change can be explained by many theories.
1. Technological change and development.
2. Cultural diffusion or the importation of all of cultural and technological
innovations from other cultures
3. The impact all of ideologies.

© 2006 Alan S. Berger 24

 Clashing or Cooperating

• Problems arise when a society has more than one

culture.
• How does this occur?
• What are ways the society can cope with multiple cultures?

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 Society, Culture, and Cultural Change

C. Different types of theories believe that social change occurs in:

1. Cycles.
a. For example, Spengler and Toynbee believed that cultures rise and fall
and would argue that modern culture is not an exception and will ultimately
collapse.
2. Other theorists have believed they had cultures evolve and change and can
continue doing so indefinitely.
3. Evolution can be rapid and continuous or can take place in great spurts
with long periods of time between them.
4. The introduction of new ideas and new technologies can cause social
changes.
5. One needs to deal with we social inertia which makes it hard for new
ideas and technologies to take hold.
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 Society, Culture, and Cultural Change

. D. How does differing reactions to new social innovations, new technologies

and new ideas affect society?
1. Cultural lags
2. Luddites, opposition to globalization and world trade.
E. Contemporary examples of this include resistance to tailored seeds for
farmers, the new technologies and new biochemical inventions, globalization
of trade and competition, and so forth

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